Jorge Lorenzo took a highly important victory in the Australian GP in a confusing, chaotic and what will be known as one of the most controversial races seen in recent history, as standings leader Marc Marquez was black flagged, which re-opened the chase for the championship title, as Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi completed the podium.
Marquez‘ disqualification has allowed Lorenzo to reduce the lead to the Repsol Honda rookie to just 18-points as the championship heads into the final two races of the season.
The Australian GP was already deemed to be controversial because it was shortened to just 19 laps because of safety issues regarding the rear tires, and it became defacto a mandatory flag-to-flag dry race.
The re-surfacing of the Phillip Island asphalt last December proved to very abrasive on the tires that suffered severe blistering problems and overheating, and Bridgestone had to raise the white flag and acknowledge the debacle.
The Race Direction and Safety Commission forced to take steps to guarantee the safety of the riders, hence it was decided that the riders had to pit and required to change bikes, only the duration of the race after warm-up practice (!) was further reduced from 26 to just 19 laps, and the number of laps before switching bikes was to be within the 9th and 10th lap, and that proved to be Marquez‘ and Honda’s downfall.
Sitting on pole position was Jorge Lorenzo – who has smashed the circuit record during qualifying – and he took the holeshot chased by Marquez, Dani Pedrosa, Bradley Smith, Valentino Rossi and Alvaro Bautista.
Running slightly wide Pedrosa let Marquez through and take second, but by the end of the second lap Lorenzo already had more than a half a second lead, as Rossi made an error and fell back to sixth.
Marquez continued hanging on to Lorenzo‘s tail as Dani Pedrosa joined the duo and by the sixth lap the three riders were separated by six tenths of second.
An incertainity during the 8th lap at the MG corner left Lorenzo open to an attack by Marquez, but the 9th lap was already upon the riders and so was the mandatory bike change.
Pedrosa was the first to change machines followed by Bautista, Smith, Dovizioso, Iannone, Edwards, Hernandez, Petrucci and Pesek.
The 10th lap saw Lorenzo head into the pitlane with the rest of the field, except for Marquez who in inexplicably stayed out.
Returning to track Lorenzo took the lead again, but when Marquez returned to track, the two riders crossed lines and bashed fairings at the Doohan corner, with the rookie falling back to third behind Pedrosa after the contact, only Pedrosa was warned that he needed to drop one position for breaking the pit lane speed limit.
Pedrosa allowed Marquez to pass, and just a few minutes later Marquez was black flagged for ignoring the pit lane window, as he pitted on the 11th lap and exceeded the mandatory number of laps allowed (Bryan Staring and Damian Cudlin were also black flagged for the same reason).
With Marquez sitting dejectedly sitting in his garage, Lorenzo easily pulled clear of Pedrosa to take the victory that broke open the championship battle.
Valentino Rossi claimed third after battling with Cal Crutchlow and Alvaro Bautista and the three riders were covered by just 0.
169 seconds.
After one of his best starts in MotoGP Bradley Smith ran up to fourth in the opening laps before falling back and take sixth.
In the usual Ducati challenge, Nicky Hayden claimed seventh, while Pramac’s Andrea Iannone took eighth ahead of Andrea Dovizioso.
Closing out the top ten was Aspar’s Randy de Puniet who beat out his team mate Aleix Espargaro, but the Spaniard was officially crowned the CRT class champion.
2013 MotoGP Phillip Island race results: 01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 19 laps in 29’07.
155 02- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 6.
936 03- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 12.
344 04- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 12.
460 05- Alvaro Bautista – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 12.
513 06- Bradley Smith – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 28.
263 07- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 32.
953 08- Andrea Iannone – Energy T.
I.
Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 35.
062 09- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 35.
104 10- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP13 – + 37.
426 11- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar+46.
099 12- Colin Edwards – NGM Mobile Forward Racing+48.
149 13- Yonny Hernandez – Ignite Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 49.
911 14- Hector Barbera – Avintia Blusens – BQR FTR – + 49.
998 15- Danilo Petrucci – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda Suter BMW – + 58.
718 16- Luca Scassa – Cardion AB Motoracing – ART GP13 – + 58.
791 17- Claudio Corti – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – FTR Kawasaki – + 1’08.
105 18- Michael Laverty – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP13 – + 1’27.
230 19- Lukas Pesek – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda Suter BMW – + 1’31.
093 20- Hiroshi Aoyama – Avintia Blusens – BQR FTR – 1 lap
